I posted this nine years ago in the “What feature do you wish your house / apartment had?” thread.
…which was a parody of “billion dollar” thinking.
Me, personally? A bazillion? I wouldn’t have a fantasy mansion. I think having truly crazy money frees you from owning things. You want to live on the Riviera? Rent the best. Because why the fuck not, you have infinite money. Why own things when you’ll just have to get rid of them again?
Going right back to the OP. Bolding mine:
The first rule of real estate is location, location, location. The first rule of rich is whatever I want, whatever I want, whatever I want.
It seems to me that if you can even have dead of winter outside your house you flunked both rule 1s.
Preach it Brother! One for my wife and one for me. Non fiction by subject fiction by author.
I want a conservatory.
I want a room decorated to look like Ancient Egypt with a big square bathtub and a shelf to sit on that I can relax in and watch TV.
A shower like the one at a hotel in Panama, but without the glass doors. It was a walk in shower with a pebble floor that felt wonderful on my feet. And a shelf to sit on.
All my appliances will be retro with a retro fridge in the TV room.
A huge pantry.
A huge library with built in bookshelves.
Heated floors.
Sung to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas.
If you want that fish to be fresh…
I’d like one long staircase just going up, and one even longer going down, and one more going nowhere just for show.
Multi-billionaire? Well, that might involve a few lifestyle changes.
After rebuilding the house three years ago, I have some ideas for what I would if I had to do it all over again, bu first I would choose a site with no space restrictions. Actually,. a really big site, preferably with an established garden, but if not, I’ll let a local landscaper run riot. Lots of woodland, maybe a pond or a small lake - but be careful what you wish for if you want to sit outside of a summer evening.
The house itself? Maybe all on the ground floor. I saw my parents being confined to the ground floor once they hit 90. Might as well prepare for it now… Essentially, just a big house, but with all the usual facilities. Mrs Dded would like a big and well-equipped kitchen, but she would probably also like to have daily help. Actually, I’m sure of that. I could afford that with a few billions., Actually, here in Poland I could afford it with a few thousands.
What would I have in the house? An office, nothing special. A really big living room with a big TV / entertainment system. A smaller living room if there are only one or two guests. A bathroom with a really big tub. A games room with a full-size billiard table, plus the piano for Mrs Ded. (We have an electronic one. It sounds pretty much like a grand piano, if you choose that setting, but without the horrendous price tag and maintenance requirements.) A wood stove in the living room. Underfloor heating in the whole house - way better than radiators. This being Poland, aircon is not necessary if the house is well insulated.
A cellar to keep cheese, root vegetables and wine. Maybe also a salt grotto in the cellar; a few wellness hotels offer them, and they are nice. Outside, a large conservatory (glassed-in area) for plants, Mrs Ded is big on plants.
But as somebody said, if you have endless megabucks, you can live where you want, when you want. The winter too grey and depressing? Hie thee hence to a warmer clime. The summer a bit too hot and fly-blown? Time for a change of climate. I think that I (OK, make it we, I;ll bring Mrs Ded along) could do worse than testing top-line hotels and deciding in whether or not we like being pampered. It’s not a cheap lifestyle, but you don’t have to worry about maintaining your mansion or doing any household chores. That said, even the best hotel gets wearisome after a while, and I would still build my mansion. Actually, with that sort of moolah, I could set up various holiday homes, something really simple like a log cabin, in the mountains or on a lake. In fact, if I was a dollar milioinaire, I could do that now.
My guess is that life is really fun at that level as long as you don’t have to worry about stalkers.I’ll take it if anonymity is guaranteed. The bigger question is what to do with the rest of the money. If the occasion arises, I’m sure I’ll have some ideas. But I would not bother with a stable of Ferraris, or a private jet, or similar high-ticket items.
I saw cheese cake, and I was confused. Don’t get me wrong - I loves me some cheesecake. It just struck me as an odd requirement of a mansion!
I think in Wisconsin a cheese cave is a requirement by law. 
The first thing that that comes to mind, something I’ve wanted for years: A tower high enough to get me up over the trees with a large glass dome - for watching lightning. I would probably build it somewhere that has lightning more often.
I like living surrounded by trees, but I also like watching lightning and these are not terribly compatible without a tower.
Monkey butlers!
Luxurious dog kennel with large field, so I can have LOTS of dogs! All the dogs!
A large wetland I can just keep pristine, and roam with my dogs.
Heated drive and walkways, I’m never shovelling again!
A tower attached to the house for sky watching, (with elevator, I’m not as young as I once was!)
A LARGE garden, complete with a ground keepers cottage and resident gardener.
Large maze made from hedging.
I doubt I’d live in a mansion, but my modest-sized home would be very nice. It would have spectacular woodwork throughout, and many many windows with excellent views. And one room would be set up for my friends to come over to play music in - tho I sorta have that already. Would be nice outdoors living space as well - deck and/or patio.
The one “luxury” I think of is a 50m lap pool - just a lane or 2 wide. Likely in an enclosure with sliding doors/roof panels that could be opened in nice weather.
I really like being in gardens, but not so fond of the work. So I’ll buy the Arnold Arboretum and keep all its staff. Plus maybe a few designers to keep thinking up and creating new themed gardens so it won’t be the ‘same old, same old’ all the time.
I’m not totally selfish, other people can still come and visit my garden, except that I have a security staff that will swoop in and clear out all other people when I announce I’m heading over to enjoy my garden. Oh, and they will execute on the spot anyone who litters or dares to pick flowers or walk off the paths.
Then I’ll build an rather ordinary, small-ish house next door. Just one bedroom, a nicely fitted out bathroom, a medium sized dining room, and a living room with comfortable furniture. There’ll be a ‘servant’s wing’, undoubtedly larger than the ‘main house,’ where all the necessary maintenance of life type things go on – kitchen, laundry, garage, storage closets galore, etc. – with the appropriate staff to deal with all of it with little to no input or effort from me. Like, maybe I’ll occasionally ring down to the chef and say I feel like having seafood tonight.
And then next door but with a suitable gap in between I’ll have the guest house. Enough bedrooms/baths/kitchens/sitting rooms/etc. for four sets of guests to mingle or avoid each other as they please.
I have simple tastes.
A mile long hallway. Yeah, it’s going to be a large building.
I don’t actually need most of the things I listed. I wouldn’t actually use the lego. And Las Vegas is not the most beautiful place. Might be better to rent it instead. I also only eat cheesecake occasionally.
I might still, yes. I tend to be a pretty nitpicky person, and I don’t want to embarass myself by lecturing any servants (“no, I want the laundry rinsed this way, and the interior of the drum wiped, and then only this kind of detergent, and only dried this way - first a low cycle, then a cycle on no heat, etc.”) I’d rather do it myself.
Instead of one large house, I’d want a couple of decent sized homes on a large plot of land above a lake or river. Main house for me, another for my daughter and her fiancé, another for my mom. Far enough away so just trotting over wouldn’t be a thing.
There’d be an enclosed heated pool out back. A large greenhouse. Indoors, I would want a glass roof in my bedroom so I could watch the skies at night. Maybe a conservatory. A gym would be lovely. Like others above, the house would have top of the line HVAC. However, the house would be small enough so having the windows open would clear the house. I love having the windows open.
Where I would ideally like to be is up on the cliffs over the Mississippi or Lake Pepin. My sister and I have joked about having an elevator from the house at the top down to the river/lake. Forget stairs. I’d have a selection of watercraft for whatever I felt like doing that day.
I’m sure there would be a barn somewhere, as my daughter has a major thing for goats and has said before her dream would be to foster them.
And a big garage for all the vehicles I would treat myself to. Not Jay Leno levels of ownership, but there’s at least a dozen off the top of my head I would buy in a heartbeat.
Think about this: One of my coworkers told me about shopping for a McMansion some years ago. His wife’s only question: “Does it come with cleaning service?”
An RV, not necessarily the biggest one one the market - but one that is easy to drive. And then I’d visit all of the national parks while living the life of a snowbird.
For a house, an attached greenhouse on one side, and an imitation lighthouse on the other. The greenhouse to enjoy plants in the middle of winter; the lighthouse just so I could sit in the lantern room and enjoy the view.
Since I gather the goal is to achieve the highest level of extravagance possible, I suggest the following:
-There would be a library like no other found in a private residence. The number and variety of books found would compare favorably to most public libraries found in mid-sized American cities.